Reputational damage is type of division that is long-lasting, quiet, and ambient yet difficult to repair. People say things about each other in a church or business setting that may appear benign but in reality can be highly damaging to others.
Managing Your Reputation
I have seen the visceral, adverse effects a Christian business owner experiences when their reputation is wrongly damaged. As Christian business owners, we have little control over our reputation and the damage that usually happens in the short term. Long-term behaviors can alter short-term reputational damage, which can take years to repair.
When you find your reputation is being damaged, take time to pray against those whom Satan is using to damage your reputation. Also, ask God to show you all you need to learn during this trial. Pray against gossip. Pray against reductionism—our tendency to base our total assessment of another person on one or two actions or statements, ignoring all the rest of that person’s words and actions. Pray against the enemy being successful in destroying you via the words of others.
And then go out and manage yourself well. Do what you say you will do. Keep your word. Treat others with kindness and always treat them fairly. Bless those who criticize or tear down your reputation. Build and maintain genuine relationships. Summarize sensitive conversations in writing. Understand yourself better than you understand others. Seek first to understand their viewpoints before offering yours. Be pleasant and easy to work with. Learn to have difficult conversations without anger or strife.
If you do these things and more, it will be difficult for others to evaluate you negatively over time.
Protecting Other’s Reputations
The Scriptures speak to reputation. Proverbs 22:1 (NIV) says:
A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.
Ecclesiastes 7:1 (NIV) says:
A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.
What we can take away from these two verses are plain to see:
- A good reputation is worth more than a mound of money.
- It is better to end life with a good reputation than to start life with a happy birth.
These two verses imply that if we want to have a good reputation, then we should guard the reputation of others. Hence, we build up our vendors, partners, customers, and employees behind their backs. Maybe we focus on their strengths when we discuss them. Philippians 2:3 (NIV) says:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Paul instructs us to value others “above” ourselves and to look out for their interests—which would include valuing their reputation as much as we value our own. Christians reveal their love for others and demonstrate true humility by having the interests of others precede concern for themselves.[1]
Most who are reading this post will have to admit that there have been times when we have said derogatory things about others. Such talk is usually sin—even if what we said was true. Otherwise stellar reputations can be ruined for life with a few spoken words by one person at a pivotal point in time to one or more pivotal people in the life of the accused. When we are talking about others, I believe it is important for Christians to protect the reputation of the one being discussed. I believe this to be equally true whether we are discussing a close friend or a public figure.[2]
When we damage the reputation of others, we give Satan a foothold to work toward the destruction of that person by disrupting his or her relationships in life and business without him/her knowing why their relationships have changed. And, when we gossip, we also soil our own soul. Gossip is lethal to our efforts to protect another’s reputation.
So, let us realize that people are complex beings and reducing their persona to one or two negative qualities unnecessarily damages their reputation. Instead, focus on the good of that person and find something positive to say about him/her or else, don’t say anything at all.
Bill English, Publisher
Bible and Business
[1] H.A. Kent. “Philippians.” In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Ephesians through Philemon, Vol. 11. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981), 122.
[2] Christians must protect the reputation of public figures too. The Bible doesn’t differentiate between private and public figures. I am often grieved by how coarse and ruthless Christians can talk about political figures with whom they have strong disagreements. Such talk is sin and should not characterize us.
